Prez Cup is nice change from edgy Ryder

The U.S. team captain Fred Couples holds the Presidents Cup trophy after his team won the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Royal Melbourne Golf Course in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/David Callow)
— AP

The U.S. team captain Fred Couples holds the Presidents Cup trophy after his team won the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Royal Melbourne Golf Course in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/David Callow)
/ AP

Call it Ryder Cup Lite. And that’s not a knock. It’s a compliment, actually.

The Presidents Cup returns this week at one of America’s better golf courses, the Jack Nicklaus masterpiece that is Muirfield Village in Ohio, and there are probably still casual golf fans who don’t know exactly what it’s about.

Who are these Presidents of which we speak?

Nineteen years ago, the PGA Tour recognized with envy the financial and competitive success of the Ryder Cup, owned by the PGA of America, and figured it was time to stage its own team competition. It was a natural, of course, because countries such as Australia and South Africa were producing world-class players, but there was no event in which to play as a team.

Thus was born the Presidents Cup in 1994, with Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all serving as honorary chairmen through the years, alongside a host of prime ministers. And though the event is really still in its infancy, there are a few advantages to that.

The Ryder Cup has almost become too big and too corporate for its own good. What was once a friendly, sporting team party put together by a seed salesman has become an over-hyped and over-wrought clash between the U.S. and Europe that sometimes gets rather nasty.

There was the “War by the Shore” in 1991 and the perceived American arrogance after the win in Boston in 1999, and though tempers seemed to have simmered down some, there is a life-and-death tension placed on the Ryder Cup that can be both entertaining and somewhat disturbing.

The Presidents Cup doesn’t have that vibe. Maybe because it’s really tough to get too wound up playing against the good-natured Aussies or Argentines or South Africans or Japanese. Let’s face it, none of them can get under your skin like Sergio Garcia or Colin Montgomerie. (OK, maybe Vijay Singh comes close.)

Then there is the competition, which has been remarkably one-sided. Nine of these Cups have been played, and the Americans have won seven of them outright, including the last four. The Internationals seized their only Cup in 1998, and in probably the event’s most famous moment, captains Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player declared a tie in 2003 when darkness halted a taut playoff between Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.

It’s not like the Internationals don’t have the talent. Major winners Singh, Els, Greg Norman, Nick Price, Angel Cabrera, Steve Elkington, Geoff Ogilvy, Retief Goosen and Mike Weir have been participants, but the U.S. seems to have more depth, and, of course, team experience, since it plays one of these international competitions each year.

“We’ve had the upper hand, and our guys know that going in there,” said U.S. captain Fred Couples, who is trying to lead a third straight Cup win. “I don’t know that anyone can really figure (the lopsided record) out.”

One of the biggest conundrums of Tiger Woods’ career is that he’s played with such mediocrity in the Ryder Cup, with a 13-17-3 overall record, but has been his usually formidable match-play self in the Presidents, with a mark of 20-14-1 that includes a 5-0 run in San Francisco in ’09.